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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. And welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell sitting in for the one and only Tim Miller, because he is on summer vacation, which he deserves, don't you worry. Even though Tim is not here, Bill Crystal is. So we're going to do a regular Monday show where we spin through the news. Bill, I want to start first by saying if it looks like I am sweaty, it is not because I'm so nervous to sit in Tim's chair. It's because. Because I'm. I'm on a fitness journey now with coach Robbie, and I just worked out, so everybody's just gonna have to put up with a little schitzing for a second.
- [00:41]
B
I didn't even notice. But it's an honor to be on with the one and only Sarah Longwell. I mean, Tim Miller is every week for Sarah Longwell. This is. This is something, you know, we're going.
- [00:49]
A
We're going. This is a big deal.
- [00:50]
B
It's a big upgrade, you know.
- [00:52]
A
Did you watch the game last night? The World cup game, the final?
- [00:55]
B
I did, I did.
- [00:56]
A
Who were you rooting for?
- [00:58]
B
I was sort of, you know, ambivalent going in, but I ended up rooting for Spain because Argentina is a pretty dirty team, I've got to say, and Spain does play kind of beautiful soccer in its own careful but cautious. Not cautious, careful and precise, but pretty impressive way. So I was happy that Spain won and. Yeah. What about you?
- [01:18]
A
Well, I was rooting for Argentina the only way I was thinking about how Americans choose who. Who they're going to root for in a game like this. And I've been asking people, and everybody's got their own. Like, my wife was rooting for Spain because she studied abroad there. I was rooting for Argentina because Evita is my third favorite musical. And, you know, that's all I had, but it led me to get very intense about it. But I bring up the World cup because there's some intersection with the news today because we're going to have to talk about Iran. And, you know, three service members were killed, possibly four over the weekend. At least two were killed in an Iranian attack on a U.S. air base in Jordan, which has been like, that is our key hub for Air Force strikes against Iran. Another soldier's missing, and there's a set of unidentified remains. And I. And this. This new. We're in a new phase now in terms of the tensions with Iran. And I. I saw somebody mentioned this, and it struck me as interesting, which is that now that the World cup is over that the World cup is actually this moment where tensions tend to ease and that the end of the World cup might signal sort of a flaring of tensions again because the international community is kind of not doing a Kumbaya thing. Is that a crazy thing or does that sound right?
- [02:44]
B
Yeah, I don't know. It's an interesting. I really thought of it that way. I was just struck and I wrote about this in morning shots by I mean, just the intersection of world politics in Iran, that Trump played golf Saturday and then at his, I think was at his club in Northern Jersey and then went to the game and sat in his air conditioned box and then came down and it was amazing. The photo that Sarah Rogers pulled for Morning shots is fantastic. Trump butts into the ceremony where the head of the guy who runs FIFA, who's kind of a showboat himself incidentally. But anyway, Trump out showboats in by butting in and being part of the medal presenting ceremony, which I don't recall is the normal practice of these kinds of events. The president of the host country just invites himself down there, but he's in there putting medals on people and then he's trying to be in the photos. And then finally the FIFA president, the FIFA head says, okay, basically time to go. Let them have their celebration. And that's what people want to see, is them being rambunctious. And so he heads off stage right and Trump sort of follows him for a bit, but then stops and sort of lurks there awkwardly trying to stay in the photo. And actually the FIFA guy tries to, comes back and tries to kind of, we should probably get off and he stays there. And there's that fantastic photo of him kind of awkwardly standing on the side as the Spanish players ignore him and have a well deserved celebration. So very Trump like, right? I mean, and then, you know, that he. Anyway just, I mean, not that he shouldn't go to the World cup just because. Just because we're at war. Though other presidents, I would say might have made that calculation or that decision, especially on a weekend where American service members are killed. But then just the kind of unbelievable, pathetic, really pathetic. You had an excellent tweet this weekend about how pathetic the strong men are that they're so weak. And you really saw that with Trump, right? He's literally the most famous man in the world. He's President of the United States. He's whatever, he's doing all kinds of bad things, but he's doing them as president. He can get any attention he wants anytime. He can't resist butting into the World cup celebrations of the championship. It's not like the US team won or. It's not like it was the US Team or anything.
- [04:51]
A
Is it Spain State? This was. It was crazy watching him try to horn in. It's not like Cash Patel chugging beers with at least, what is the American. The USA team? You know, at the Olympics, Trump is just like, no, I'm going to try to do stolen valor literally anywhere I can find it, including Spain's, just because I happen to be here.